On Monday, September 17, U.S. District Court Judge Edmund Sargus, a Clinton appointee, will hear Schmitt v Husted, s.d., 2:18cv-966. This is the case over whether Ohio election officials have the power to decide on their own that they will not put an initiative on the ballot because they feel the subject matter is inappropriate for an initiative. The case arose when Portage County officials rejected an initiative relating to marijuana. Portage County can’t print its ballots until this case is settled.

Here is the final brief in the case, filed by the plaintiffs in response to the government’s brief.

In the November 2018 election, there will be Democrats on the ballot in all but three U.S. House districts. The Republican Party has never had that many candidates. The Democrats have not had candidates in so many districts since 1974, when they only missed one district, Ohio’s 3rd. The other years in which the Democratic Party had that many candidates were 1964 (they missed one), 1962 (they missed one), and 1958 (they missed two).

The only three districts in 2018 that the Democrats missed are California’s 8th district, Georgia’s 8th district, and North Carolina’s 3rd district. In California’s 8th district, the top-two system blocked any Democrat from qualifying for the general election ballot. There were two Republicans and three Democrats. The two Republicans received 44,482 and 24,933 votes. The three Democrats received 23,675, 10,990, and 5,049 votes.

In 2018, Republicans have candidates for U.S. House on the ballot in 398 districts. For purposes of this blog post, the 435 regular seats, plus the District of Columbia’s Delegate seat, are counted, for a total of 436 districts. If purists object to including the D.C. Delegate post, then the Republicans have candidates in 397 districts.

Last month, the Bread and Roses Party filed a petition to be a qualified party in Maryland. It submitted approximately 15,000 signatures, but was told that it only has 9,773 valid signatures. The requirement is 10,000 signatures.

On September 5, the party’s founders filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that it is unconstitutional to invalidate signatures just because the signer failed to include his or her middle initial. Without the law requiring the signature on the petition to exactly match the name on the voter registration form, the party would have had enough valid signatures. Segal v Maryland State Board of Elections, 1:18cv-2731.

The lawsuit also challenges the “sore loser” law, because the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate, Jerome Segal, had run in this year’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. The case is assigned to Judge George Hazel, an Obama appointee. The case is pro se. Here is the Complaint.

The State Board of Elections will permit the Bread and Roses Party to continue gathering signatures, and if it gets another 227 valid signatures, the entire petition will be approved and can be used to put the party on the ballot for the 2020 election.